


Distraction

by beastieboys



Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
Genre: :)))), Halloween, HollowHeart - Freeform, M/M, enoch is an actor in a haunted house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8390056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beastieboys/pseuds/beastieboys
Summary: Jacob isn’t afraid of anything. This turns out to be a problem.





	

**Author's Note:**

> omg hi everyone !! enjoy this fic based off when i went to Scarowinds, just in time for halloween! it's been so long since i've posted but i am also working on a longer fic that will be out one day, eventually.....but thank you all so much for supporting this ship (and the name!)!!!! just a few things: if ur a fic writer for movie verse stuff, put ur fics in the (2016) tag instead of the - Ransom Riggs tag !! don't do both pls,,, also follow me on my [hollowheart tumblr](http://jakeenoch.tumblr.com)! enjoy!!

It wasn’t Jacob’s idea to go to the local amusement park’s annual haunted palooza. Rather it was Olive’s, for as small as she is, she’s quite the daredevil and craves that sweet adrenaline rush that haunted houses apparently give her. Jake? Not so much. He isn’t really afraid of anything; sure a quick jumpscare will get him, but he won’t be terrified. Olive finds it quite annoying, especially when she and her girlfriend, Emma, are clinging on for dear life while he waltzes through the attraction like an utter douchebag. Needless to say, it’s been awhile since the two girls invited Jake to go somewhere scary with them. 

 

But October is so full of wonderful things to do, and that’s how Jake ended up third wheeling with two scaredy cats in an amusement park at twelve in the morning. He will admit they’ve done a good job converting this place into a spooky world, with the entire park shrouded in fog and actors dressed up like “monsters”, or whatever they’re trying to sell it as. 

 

Honestly, Jacob just wanted to ride some rollercoasters, but those wait times were upwards of  _ two hours _ and Olive and Emma want to do  _ all  _ of the haunted houses. 

 

“Fine, Jake. You can at least choose which one we do first.” Emma says, handing Jacob the map.

 

Jake grins and gives a thumbs up at the blonde girl before looking down at the map in his hand.  _ Psycho Circus, Dark Harvest, Defex, and Zombie High School.  _ What choices! Except he finds zombies quite boring, the whole Killer Clown thing is going on right now so he needs none of that in his life, and he has no idea what  _ Defex  _ means.

 

“Dark Harvest, I guess?” Jake says, holding the map in front of his friends and pointing to where the attraction is, almost on the other side of the park.

 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me, that’s so far away!” Olive pouts.

 

“You told me to pick, I chose the one that sounded the coolest!” Jake retorts.

 

“Well lead the way then, Mr. Cool Police.” Emma says, looping her arm through Olive’s.

 

Jacob sighs and turns the map to face how they are standing and points toward some fog. 

 

“That way!”

 

Twelve minutes, two jumpscares later the three friends are standing in line for  _ Dark Harvest. _ It’s a farm themed attraction, and the line is encased by corn husks. It leads up to a barn, and every few minutes, a loud  _ boom!  _ echoes from somewhere behind the barn. 

 

When Jake, Olive, and Emma reach the front of the line, he swallows some anticipation down his throat. They’ve just been waiting for so  _ long,  _ and sure Jake’s not afraid of anything, he’s just been thinking about what it will be like since the beginning and he has no idea what to expect. 

 

“Alright….enjoy.” The line manager smiles, gesturing them to go into the barn. 

 

Emma’s paler than Jake’s ever seen her (which is saying something) and Olive’s fists are clenched. They enter the barn, only to be met with a loud  _ thwack!  _ of wood hitting wood. The barn halls are like a maze, and a farmer with white eyes walks up to them and stares blankly into Olive’s eyes as she walks by. 

 

The barn opens into a corn field. More husks, just like the ones in the waiting line, enclose the maze and stand taller than Jake can reach jumping. The next “scene” has a guy in overalls leaning on a tractor.

 

Holy  _ shit,  _ he’s hot. He’s got some scary black makeup running from his eyes and a straw hat is covering most of his hair, but God, his  _ face shape  _ is enough to make Jake’s heart leap in his throat. 

 

“Howdy, y’all,” the hot guy says as they near closer to him, in kind of a bad southern accent, “Did you come all the way out here for the moonshine?” 

 

Jake almost laughs, considering he’s nineteen, “Yeah, I’m legally allowed to drink.” 

 

The hot farmer cracks what looks like an actual genuine smile, which lowkey melts Jake’s heart. Which prepares it to be frozen in shock, for just in that moment some of the husks step out from the wall right in front of where Jake is standing, startling him more than anything he’s seen all night. Emma shrieks and holds on tighter to Olive. 

 

When the husk goes back into place, the hot farmer grins.

 

“I’m sorry, am I a distraction?” he asks, turning back around, not expecting an answer, until--

 

“Yeah, you’re really attractive.” Jacob says, catching the guy half turned. 

 

The farmer twists his head to look back. 

 

“Not bad yourself.” he says, his southern accent faltering.

 

And then he disappears into the husks. 

 

The rest of the attraction was pretty good; a guy with a chainsaw chased Emma until she was so far ahead they found her waiting in a scene with someone standing there watching her, Olive got fake shot by a woman busting out of a house, a scarecrow politely asked Jake’s name and then started screaming it at him for a solid thirty seconds while he managed to avoid eye contact.

 

“That was amazing!” Olive beamed as they left, her chest heaving. 

 

Jake looks past all the people waiting in line to go through and feels a pang in his chest.  _ What’s up with that? _ Emma puts her arm through his to join the friends together in a row. Jacob licks his lips.

 

“Where to next, Olive?” Emma asks, sneaking her hand into Jake’s jacket pocket to pull out the map and hand it to her girlfriend. 

 

“Um...Psycho Circus is just around the corner, by the bumper cars.” Olive says. 

 

“Okay.” Emma and Jacob reply.

 

A short walk through clowns with painted faces and carnival sounds lead them to the line to the attraction. Jacob feels wrong, he feels off, somehow, like he doesn’t belong in this line. Like he should be somewhere else. His brain jerks back to the image of the farmer. Sure, he was hot, but this can’t be what’s bugging him, can it?

 

A half hour and two close encounters to being thrown out (thank God Olive’s small arms didn’t  _ actually  _ hit anyone) later, the three emerge from the  _ Psycho Circus _ tent. 

 

Jake would rate it as just okay. There weren’t as many clowns as he thought, but there was a floating girl, a “freak” holding a bunch of small hearts, and a bird that kept eyeing him as he walked. It felt vaguely familiar for some reason. 

 

“Dude, did you  _ see  _ that guy on the stilts though?” Olive nudges her girlfriend.

 

“What? No.” Emma replies.

 

“He was towering over me!” Olive laughs, turning her head to see her girlfriend’s reaction.

 

“How could I have possibly missed  _ that?” _ Emma asks, her jaw tightening.

 

Jacob’s arms swing at his sides as he listens to their jibber jabber. His mind drifts again, back to that stupid  _ distraction  _ in  _ Dark Harvest _ , back to his face and his dark eyes, his faltering accent. Jake wonders where he’s actually from.

 

“Gals, I wanna do Dark Harvest again.” Jacob stops in his tracks, causing the girls to follow suit.

 

“Why? It’s all gonna be the same. Defex is this way.” Olive points to the line for  _ Defex,  _ which is just past a few trees in the park.

 

“I don’t know, it scared me, and you know, nothing really does that, so I wanna do it again.” Jake lies, rocking back on his heels.

 

“Okay, well, you’ve got your phone on you right?” Olive asks, and Jake checks his pockets, pulling out proof. “Go do it then, and call when you’re done, we’ll catch up with you then.” 

 

“Thanks, you’re the best! Have fun!” Jake waves and heads in the opposite direction of his friends. 

 

The line to  _ Dark Harvest  _ isn’t as long as it was, maybe because it’s later in the night and everyone else doesn’t see the redo value. More for Jake.

 

The line keeper doesn’t recognize him, nor does the monster that walks through the line to intimidate people. The balloon in his heart deflates slightly because he has a feeling that hot farmer guy won’t recognize him at this rate.

 

But he does.

 

Jake is at the back of the group this time, and it’s a small one, no more than five or so, and as the guy does his lines, he stumbles as he makes eye contact with Jake. That’s strange, he’s been doing these lines over and over all night.

 

Jake studies the guy’s face as he once again disappears into the tall stalks, still making eye contact. Jacob’s heart is beating through his chest, and his throat is swelling.  _ The farmer recognized him.  _

 

He goes through the motions for the next scene, he already knows what’s coming, but then he sees something out of the corner of his eye, something that wasn’t there last time. He takes a deep breath and turns to look at it.

 

It’s the farmer. 

 

Just staring at him.

 

He’s caught up in the gaze and fails to notice that the rest of his group left without him, that he’s alone in this haunted farmyard with the hottest guy he’s seen in a long time.

 

“Did you really mean what you said?” the farmer asks, drawing closer to Jacob.

 

“Yeah,” Jake breathes back. 

 

It takes one thousand years but then the farmer is there, staring directly at him from three feet away.

 

“You’ve got a lot of gut coming back here.” the guy grins, almost devilishly. 

 

“I...wanted to see you.” Jacob admits. He’s already come this far; why not go all the way?

 

The farmer continues smiling that smile and takes Jake’s hand in his. He leads him toward the house section of the attraction, and the monsters stay away from them. The farmer stops, glancing between Jake’s eyes. The farmer leans in,  _ holy shit, he’s going to kiss him! _

 

A gunshot breaks through the moment and the farmer falls to the ground before their lips can touch. Jake stumbles backward, looking up at the screen door of the house, which is held wide open by a woman with a gun.

 

“I told y’all queers you ain’t welcome on my farm!” she shouts, slamming the door behind her.

 

Jake almost vomits. He forgot he was in a  _ haunted house,  _ where he’s supposed to be  _ sacred.  _ His chest heaves, and his gaze falls to the farmer on the ground.

 

_ He’s not dead, he’s not dead, he’s not dead. _

 

The farmer pulls himself up slowly from the ground and stands, brushing the dirt and mulch from his overalls. His mouth is covered in blood, and he spits some out. That sends a pang of  _ oh God, he  _ is  _ dying  _ into Jake’s mind before the haunted house thought returns.

 

“Man, that got you!” the farmer grins. “Nice one, Nia!” he shouts back to the screen door.

 

Jacob wants to punch this guy in his fucking face. He also wants to finish the kiss they started before the guy was so rudely shot.

 

“I’m Enoch. I get off at 3 am. You should get off, too.” the farmer, Enoch, winks.

 

“I--”

 

“Awesome. I’ll be waiting for you near the Cinnabon at the front of the park.” Enoch continues without even waiting for a convincing reply.

 

And for the third time tonight, Enoch disappears into the stalks.

 

Jacob lets the rest of the haunted house scare him. He is too far up in the clouds to keep his guard up and his nonchalance, well, nonchalant.

 

When he exits the attraction, he calls Olive.

 

“Not a good time right now.” she whispers in a sing-song-scared voice. 

 

Jacob holds the phone away from his ear as she screams.

 

“I hit it off with the farmer guy in Dark Harvest _.  _ His name is Enoch. He’s taking me home tonight, so go home whenever you want. Love you.” Jake says, met with a shriek. 

 

“O-okay, be safe.” Olive replies and the line goes dead.

 

Jake waltzes past the carnival section, the British section, and the toxic toddler section of the park to reach the front. He checks his phone: 2:48 am. Twelve minutes.

 

The Cinnabon is closed, sadly, but he snags a table outside of it and checks Twitter for the time being. At 2:55, a parkwide closing announcement is issued. At 2:59, he locks his phone and puts it in his pocket. 

 

Jacob’s eyes drift upward. Straight into the dark eyes he recognizes so well now. Enoch. Jake looks him up and down as he draws closer, wearing a plain tee and sweatpants, with a dark jacket draping across his shoulders. His hair is dark brown and curly, but it seems tangled from the straw hat.

 

“Hi.” Enoch grins, approaching Jacob and taking a seat beside him.

 

“Hi.” Jacob echoes.

 

“It’s funny how I’m taking you home but I don’t even know your name.” Enoch states, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Jake.”

 

“That’s cute.” Enoch smiles. “Ready?”

 

“Yeah.” Jacob stands, and Enoch holds out his hand for him to take.

 

Jake grasps Enoch’s cold, soft hand in his. The actor leads him out of the park and back to his car.

 

“Do you usually hook up with attendees?” Jacob asks, his gaze traveling with the trees outside of the car window.

 

“No, usually they don’t flirt with me, much less come back.” Enoch laughs. “Besides, I think you’re nice. If you want, tomorrow I have off, so we can go see a movie or something? We don’t even have to do anything tonight, if you don’t want.” 

 

“That sounds nice.” Jake says, his words slurring from lack of sleep. 

 

He curls up and closes his eyes. He feels a hand run up and down his back gently. Jacob Portman is content.


End file.
